Alexandre Desplat has been hired to score the upcoming Dreamworks Animation feature Rise of the Guardians. The movie is based on the book series The Guardians of Childhood by William Joyce (Meet the Robinsons) who is also co-directing the film with Peter Ramsey. The movie follows a group of heroic childhood legends, including Santa Claus (voiced by Alec Baldwin), the Easter Bunny (Hugh Jackman), the Tooth Fairy (Isla Fisher) and Jack Frost (Chris Pine) who teaming up to stop Pitch the Boogeyman (Jude Law) from sending the world into eternal darkness. Joyce has also co-written the film’s script with David Lindsay-Abaire (Robots, Rabbit Hole). Christina Steinberg (Bee Movie) and Nancy Bernstein are producing the project and Guillermo del Toro and Michael Siegel (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) serve as executive producers. Rise of the Guardians marks Desplat’s first major animated feature tentpole project and also his first movie for Dreamworks. The movie is set to be release on November 21, 2012.

The prolific composer has also yet another high profile project coming up later this year. He will be scoring the thriller Argo, his first movie for director Ben Affleck who also stars in the film as Tony Mendez, the CIA exfiltration expert who created a fake Hollywood production to get six Americans who were hiding out at the Canadian ambassador’s out of Iran. Alan Arkin, John Goodman, Bryan Cranston, Taylor Schilling and Kyle Chandler are co-starring. Chris Terrio has written the screenplay based on an article in Wired from Joshuah Bearman. George Clooney & Grant Heslov (The Men Who Stare at Goats, Good Night, and Good Luck) and David Klawans (Nacho Libre) are producing the Smoke House and GK Films production. Desplat has previously worked with Clooney and Heslov on last year’s The Ides of March. Argo is currently in post-production and will be released on September 28, 2012 by Warner Bros. Pictures. [Kraft-Engel Management]

Strange news. I’m very interested in hearing what he does for Rise of the Guardians. Interesting that John Powell isn’t doing this feature. He’s usually the composer of choice for DreamWorks Animation.

Dang it. Why can’t boring composers like Desplat stay way from animation? Not that I don’t like Desplat, but I think his style is better for things like “The King’s Speech” rather than this. Wish Powell was still linked to this. He doesn’t seem to be working much this year…

If you listen to other Desplat’s works you’ll notice that he’s able to brought his style in different kinds of movies. Largo Winch, The golden compass, Harry Potter, Fantastic Mr. Fox, A Monkey’s Tale, etc.